I have been slightly surprised by the lack of interest in the Australian federal election — and not just because Australia is arguably America’s closest ally, having fought alongside the U.S. in every war of the 20th century. No, my surprise rests on the fact that the election has been utterly gripping from before the start to after the finish.
The story starts nine months ago, when Tony Abbott became leader of the conservative Liberal party to a chorus of derision from Labour opponents and mainstream-media pundits. Type “Tony Abbot” and “unelectable” into Google, and you will get 19,800 assents from the computer. Abbott was seen as too conservative, too dogmatic, and too hot-headed for the modern liberal Australia allegedly being shaped by Labour prime minister Kevin Rudd. This judgment proved to be a serious mistake.
Two months ago, Rudd was dispatched from office by an internal Labour coup because party bosses were convinced that Abbott would beat him in an election. (One was due in October.) Rudd was replaced by his deputy, the popular Julia Gillard, who became the first woman prime minister of Oz and at once surged ahead in the opinion polls. When that early lead began to wobble after policy mistakes, Gillard declared an immediate election to maximize her “honeymoon” prospect of gliding to victory.
Fat chance. The formal election campaign was even more of a roller coaster than the previous seven months had been. Leaks began to emerge from — well, everyone believes it was from the camp of Kevin Rudd — revealing how Gillard had voted against various popular measures in the cabinet (whose discussions and votes are private). For a week, Labour was convulsed by internal squabbles that failed to end even when Gillard and Rudd forged a cold and suspicious peace.
Abbott, meanwhile, ran a disciplined campaign focusing on the government’s faults but avoiding direct attacks on Gillard. He took the lead in opinion polls. But Gillard fought back well in mid-campaign and forced a reluctant Abbott (who himself was now playing it too safe) to hold a second debate (just as she had been forced into a first one). Debating honors were roughly even, but overall, the debates helped Abbott to look prime ministerial. When he overtook Gillard again in the final days of the campaign, Labour and its media supporters launched a desperate attack on him as a male chauvinist unacceptable to female voters. (Abbott is pro-life.) Its impact was dented, however, by the fact that Abbott was usually accompanied by his wife and three dazzling daughters who, as one commentator said, radiated love and respect for their father.
Polls on the eve of the election predicted a dead heat.
That’s almost what the voters delivered through the complicated mechanism of Australia’s Alternative Vote system. Abbott’s conservative coalition easily won the primary-vote total with 44 percent to Labour’s 38 percent. When the second-preference votes of those who had voted for smaller parties were distributed, however, Labour caught up for a photo finish. Though final figures will not be available for another week, Labour leads the Coalition by 50.50 to 49.50 percent in the “two-party-preferred” national vote, while the Coalition leads Labour by 73 to 72 in parliamentary seats — with 76 being the number needed for a majority. Most political observers don’t expect the seats total to change by more than one seat either way. (The national vote may vary slightly more, since 2 million votes remain to be counted.) So the net effect is that the next government will be determined by a handful of independents and Greens. They are demanding fairly major changes in how Australia is governed in return for their support. So whether Gillard or Abbott heads the next government may not be known for another ten days. The roller coaster continues on its clattering way.
Even so, some provisional conclusions can be drawn:
First, amid all the uncertainties, one thing is clear and undeniable: Labour lost an election it should have won easily. The last time that a first-term Australian government lost an election was 80 years ago — and that was in the middle of the Great Depression. In the last two years, by contrast, Australia is one of two countries that have gone through the international economic crisis without having a domestic recession. Both Rudd and his conservative predecessor, John Howard, share the credit for this achievement. It helps explain why Rudd was one of Australia’s most popular prime ministers a year ago; and Gillard was at least as popular as he was. Sitting governments usually (and reasonably) get the electoral credit for prosperity if only because they have not prevented it. So Labour’s failure to benefit from these economic advantages and electoral precedents is, well, historic.
Second, Julia Gillard is a wounded leader, but not yet a dead one. As deputy prime minister she was almost as responsible as Rudd for the failings of his government. By conspiring to oust him, she helped to divide her party and to give it an image of covert and unfraternal viciousness. Several of her own policies — for instance, creating a citizens’ council to advise on climate change — looked shifty and proved unpopular. And though she fought bravely and effectively to the end, she lost what many thought was an unlosable election. Her party, as she well knows, is a harsh and unforgiving one. If she fails to persuade the independents to keep Labour in power, she will lose the Labour leadership too. She must either remain prime minister or face the end of her political career. That gives her wooing of the independents a slightly embarrassing edge of desperation. Several commentators have noted that on election night she praised each of them by name. She has rushed to accept their conditions unreservedly (whereas Abbott has refused some of them and defended the “Westminster constitution”). Still, she might yet cobble together a temporary gimcrack coalition of Labour, Greens, and, er, cranks — and as the French say, nothing lasts like the provisional.
Third, Tony Abbott is the moral victor. He came closest of any leader to winning the election — and it was an election that by all the axioms of conventional wisdom he should have lost. This was a political struggle between parties of the Left and Right, of course; but it was also a cultural struggle of liberal metropolitan elites versus the socially conservative classes of suburban and rural Australia. To the elites, Abbott was unpopular because he represented resistance to their cultural dominance of both political parties and thus of Australian life as a whole. His skepticism about climate change (he believes that its extent, and thus the policies needed to deal with it, are as yet unclear), his pro-life convictions, his firm opposition to illegal immigration, even his colloquial outspokenness — these all marked him out as culturally unacceptable in the leafier parts of Sydney and Melbourne. You catch the tone of this in Germaine Greer’s post-election lament: “In any grown-up country . . . Tony Abbott would have been unelectable. He looks and sounds like a clown.”
But the volunteer fireman and lifeguard looked like a good bloke to most Australian voters, even some who voted against him.
Abbott is a blend of three things: an authentic, honest, and unapologetic conservative; a tough, self-disciplined, pragmatic politician who worked out a clear message and put it across vigorously; and a pleasant, affable, good-natured man. Think of him as a blend of John Howard and Ronald Reagan. Indeed, one columnist described him in a sentence that could have been (and probably was) written about Reagan: “Even people who hate Tony Abbott like him.” All three parts of his personality helped him to victory. His firmness of personal (especially religious) conviction made him appealing to those who disliked the “spin-doctor” poll-tested insincerities of recent Australian (and American . . . and British . . .) politics. His self-discipline meant that he concentrated not on winning every argument across the board but on honing a clear message on the issues of greatest importance to the voters. And his affability meant that the voters listened, liked him, and saw him as someone like themselves. In the debates he was often addressed by the voters as “Tony.”
Whoever emerges from the present confusion as prime minister, Abbott is in the stronger position. If he gets power, he will benefit from its famous “Royal Jelly” effect: Because he is prime minister, he will look like a prime minister and shed what remains of his “larrikin” image. If he remains out of power, he will look like the strong leader of a united opposition facing a defeated and illegitimate government resting on the shakiest of majorities. In either event he will join Stephen Harper of Canada and David Cameron of Britain as a major figure on the international center-right.
Indeed, he will be a persuasive alternative to the latter. Cameron lost an election he should have won; Abbott looks like winning an election he should have lost in a landslide. And he did it without apologizing for being a conservative.
— John O’Sullivan is an editor-at-large of National Review.